Greg Doherty

Well, it took over a year, but 60 Minutes last night ran a feature on the Benghazi attack on September 11, 2012 that is absolutely damning for the Obama administration. With Lara Logan as the lead reporter, it revealed an administration indifferent to the security for our diplomats and who left men fighting for us in the aftermath of the attack to fend for themselves. It did not ask the key question of why no military assets were sent to rescue them. From the transcript of the report:

The same force that had gone to the compound was now defending the CIA Annex. Hours later, they were joined by a small team of Americans from Tripoli. From defensive positions on these rooftops, the Americans fought back a professional enemy. In a final wave of intense fighting just after 5 a.m., the attackers unleashed a barrage of mortars. Three of them slammed into this roof, killing former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.

Lara Logan: They hit that roof three times.

Andy Wood: They, they hit those roofs three times.

Lara Logan: In the dark.

Andy Wood: Yea, that’s getting the basketball through the hoop over your shoulder.

Lara Logan: What does it take to pull off an attack like that?

Andy Wood: Coordination, planning, training, experienced personnel. They practice those things. They knew what they were doing. That was a– that was a well-executed attack.

We have learned there were two Delta Force operators who fought at the Annex and they’ve since been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Navy Cross — two of the military’s highest honors. The Americans who rushed to help that night went without asking for permission and the lingering question is why no larger military response ever crossed the border into Libya — something Greg Hicks realized wasn’t going to happen just an hour into the attack.

Lara Logan: You have this conversation with the defense attache. You ask him what military assets are on their way. And he says–

Greg Hicks: Effectively, they’re not. And I– for a moment, I just felt lost. I just couldn’t believe the answer. And then I made the call to the Annex chief, and I told him, “Listen, you’ve gotta tell those guys there may not be any help coming.”

Lara Logan: That’s a tough thing to understand. Why?

Greg Hicks: It just is. We–, for us, for the people that go out onto the edge, to represent our country, we believe that if we get in trouble, they’re coming to get us. That our back is covered. To hear that it’s not, it’s a terrible, terrible experience. Continue reading →

You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

I have always enjoyed the speech of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men because it contains quite a bit of truth in it, and I have regretted that the words are placed in the mouth of the villainous Colonel Jessup. In regard to fallen American heroes Tyrone Woods and Greg Doherty it is completely, and righteously, applicable.

The higher-ups in the Obama administration who turned their backs on Woods and Doherty could never understand such men. It was no part of their mission to supply embassy security. Instead, after the Benghazi attack began, Tyrone Woods asked for permission to go and risk his life to rescue the embassy personnel. He was denied permission two times, and he went anyway. He was unarmed initially, picking up his weapons from what he found on the ground, the cast away arms of the Libyan mercenaries who were supposed to provide security at the consulate and who ran when the attack began. He rescued 20 embassy personnel and got them to the CIA annex, where they were evacuated while Woods, joined by Doherty who arrived in Benghazi after the attack began, engaged in a lop sided fight against some 150 to 200 attackers. During this time they gave live intelligence to their CIA higher-ups and requested military aid. The CIA has denied that it was anyone from the CIA who vetoed the aid. So, Doherty and Woods fought their own personal Alamo alone, slaying some 60 of their foes, until they were killed at their machine gun by a mortar round some six hours and twenty minutes from the time the attack began.

Doherty and Woods had their lives taken from them, fighting for their country and to save others. They epitomize what the term honor means. To the White House higher-ups who denied them aid, perhaps Doherty and Woods seemed to be fools: “Didn’t they realize that personal survival is the be all and end all? They were idiots for sticking their necks out! Now we have this political mess to clean up!” Yeah, it is easy to visualize both curses and laughter being aimed at the spirits of these men. The Seal Code these men lived and died by would be literally incomprehensible to the people who made the decision not to send them aid: 1) Loyalty to Country, Team and Teammate, 2) Serve with Honor and Integrity On and Off the Battlefield, 3) Ready to Lead, Ready to Follow, Never Quit, 4) Take responsibility for your actions and the actions of your teammates, 5) Excel as Warriors through Discipline and Innovation, 6) Train for War, Fight to Win, Defeat our Nation’s Enemies, and 7) Earn your Trident every day. Continue reading →

Tyrone Woods and Greg Doherty were authentic American heroes. Both former Navy Seals, they fought to the last in defense of the Benghazi consulate, manning a machine gun at the CIA annex. Despite three separate orders telling them not to do so, Woods and Doherty went to the consulate after the attack began, and saved the lives of 20 embassy personnel, bringing them to the CIA annex. They defended the CIA annex, holding it while the 20 people they rescued were evacuated. They were in constant contact with higher-ups at the CIA, requesting military aid. They fought heroically for six hours and twenty minutes against an estimated 200 heavily armed attackers from the time of the beginning of the attack on the consulate, killing an estimated sixty of their foes.

They were both killed by a mortar round at the six-hour and twenty-minute mark. General David Petraeus, head of the CIA, has denied that it was the CIA that vetoed an attempted military rescue of Woods and Doherty.

Investors Business Daily, in a blistering editorial asks the question: who was responsible?

More than six hours after terrorists attacked our consulate, former Navy SEALs manned a blood-soaked machine gun to defend U.S. territory. Meanwhile Apache helicopters sat on the ground in Italy.

At 4 a.m. local time on Sept. 11 — six hours and 20 minutes after the initial attack began — former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed at the CIA annex not far from the consulate by a mortar shell. The machine gun they were firing was encrusted with blood, an indication they continued to fight after being wounded.

During that eternity, Woods and Doherty might have wondered between gunfire and explosions where the military, with bases strewn across Europe, was. U.S. forces were indeed being moved like chess pieces as the attack unfolded, but none came to their aid because no one gave the order.

President Obama, perhaps preoccupied with his upcoming Las Vegas fundraiser, met with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Vice President Joe Biden in the Oval Office at 5 p.m. ET, a little more than an hour after the onset of the attack.

He could have given the order but did not, even after an email, in which the al-Qaida-tied group Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility, arrived at 6:07 p.m. ET to a distribution list that included the White House Situation Room.

A Special Operations force went from central Europe to Naval Air Station Sigonella in southern Italy, just 480 miles from Benghazi. F-16s and Apache helicopters remained parked and unused at Aviano Air Base in northern Italy. Two Navy destroyers already in the Mediterranean Sea were moved off the coast of Libya on the day of the attack but were never used.